The Terratin Incident
' |image= |series= |production=22015 |producer(s)= |story= |script=Paul Schneider |director=Hal Sutherland |imdbref=tt0832429 |guests= |previous_production=Once Upon a Planet |next_production=The Eye of the Beholder |episode=TAS A11 |airdate=17 November 1973 |previous_release=Mudd's Passion |next_release=The Time Trap |story_date(s)=Stardate 5577.3 |previous_story=Mudd's Passion |next_story=The Time Trap }} =Summary= While observing a burnt-out supernova, the Federation starship Enterprise picks up a strange message transmitted in a two-hundred-year-old Earth code. The signal is traced to a nearby planet. When the Enterprise enters orbit, it is hit by an energy beam of "spiroid radiation" that damages its dilithium crystals and makes the crew begin to shrink (along with all other organic material aboard the ship, including the crew's uniforms). Chief Medical Officer Dr. McCoy determines that the crew will continue to shrink beyond their ability to control the ship unless a cure is found. Captain Kirk beams down to the surface and finds that the transporter can revert crew members to their original size. He also observes what appears to be a miniature city. Kirk returns to the ship, but the crew are now too small for him to see easily, and too small to operate the ship's controls. Meanwhile, the Terratins have beamed the bridge crew down to their city, where the crew learns the Terratins' fate. Terratin is a lost Earth colony, originally called "Terra Ten"; its inhabitants have mutated, because of the supernova's radiation, and are now all approximately one-sixteenth of an inch in height. The beam which caused the crew to shrink was not intended as an attack, but was the only way the Terratins had to draw attention to themselves. The crew are beamed back to the ship and return to normal size. However, the Terratins have been small for generations and cannot be restored to normal size. Their planet is in peril from massive volcanic activity, so the whole Terratin city is beamed aboard the Enterprise, and moved to another planet. =Errors and Explanations= Nit Central # wiseguy on Sunday, September 12, 1999 - 3:31am - Why did Kirk order phasers set on the city (even Spock raises his animated eyebrow) but then have the inhabitants beamed up? D.K. Henderson on Thursday, September 16, 1999 - 5:39 am - The phasers were used to cut the city and its foundations away from the planet's surface. # Will on Wednesday, May 26, 2004 - 10:23 am - McCoy says that everyone maintains the same mass-- their atoms are simply packed in closer, so everyone would still weigh the same amount shrunken as they do full size. Given that, by beaming in a city of tiny Terratins, isn't the Enterprise being weighed down by as much as hundreds of thousands of pounds in that one spot on the transporter platform? Shouldn't it collapse the deck, and eventually fall right through the ship? Either the gravity systems on Enterprise were adjusted to compensate, or the transporter platform is tougher than it looks! # Andrew Shor on Wednesday, January 19, 2005 - 7:55 pm - When the bridge crew is being beamed up from the Terratin city, they have several dilithium crystals at their feet which are about knee-high. When they materialize aboard the Enterprise in full-size the crystals are ankle-high. However since the people were supposed to be a sixteenth of an inch tall, the crystals should've been smaller than a grain of sand. Not necessarily - The shrinkage effect may not be as pronounced on minerials such as dilithium. # Benn (Benn) on Monday, January 08, 2007 - 1:48 am - Why is Dr. McCoy reporting no casualties in the corridor? Shouldn't he be reporting from Sickbay? He could be checking the rest of the ship. # Nurse Chapel is surprised at how small the halo fish and gossamer mice have gotten. Considering that she and the rest of the crew are also shrinking, shouldn't these critters appear to be proportionately the same size to her? Or are the animals shrinking at a much greater rate? Chapel's surprise could be due to her expecting the animals to shrink at the same rate. # Would a needle really be big enough to trip the electric eye that opens the doors to the ship? Seems to me it'd be too puny to register. That would depend on how big it is, and how long the crew could hold it in front of the sensor. # Then again, would there really be needles on the Enterprise? I would think that in the future, sewing might be done in a totally different fashion than it is today. The needles could be kept in reserve, in case the equipment for the other method failed or wore out. # How did the transporter know where Kirk was to lock onto him and beam him back aboard the ship? Normally, the communicators are used to locate crewmen on a planet. Kirk's, however, was destroyed by lava. They could have been specially programmed to locate his bio signature. # I sure hope Kirk was careful walking through the corridors of the Enterprise, lest he accidentally steps on one of his crewmembers. They probably stayed close to the walls whenever possible. Internet Movie Database Factual errors # A normal sized human has about the same density as water which is why normal sized humans are are neutrally buoyant in water (more or less). Having shrunk when Nurse Chapel falls into the aquarium she is seen sinking like a stone. This is correct because her size is smaller but her mass has not changed. This would mean she is now much more dense than she had been. She would not have been able to swim back to the surface of the water to call for help. She would have drowned before anyone could have helped her. The water would not have changed density because water is not organic. Perhaps she is a very strong swimmer. Plot holes # Early in the story, McCoy mentions that the shrinking of the crew is because the spacing between molecules is decreasing, which is why the crew have the same mass as before; they're just shorter. Then later, it takes 3 engineers to operate the transporter levers. But if they have the same mass (and weight), a single person should still be able to push buttons and move levers. Their relative strength in relation to the controls may have been reduced. =Sources= Category:The Animated Series Category:Episodes